Decarbonized combustion performance of a radiant mesh burner operating on pipeline natural gas mixed with hydrogen

With the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, blending lower or zero carbon fuels like renewable hydrogen into natural gas is a promising and practical way to achieve clean energy transition. From the perspective of end users and combustion device manufactures, one of the major concerns is the influence of the renewable contents on the combustion devices performance. The possible renewable gas content percentage in pipeline also interests policy makers and gas utility companies. The present study investigates on the influence of hydrogen contents on the operating performance of a surface burner, which is widely adopted in industrial, commercial and residential applications. The interactions among heating load, excess air level and fuel contents are studied by a 3-factor13-level experiment design. Evaluated combustion performance characteristics include flame characteristics, burner/exhaust temperature and emissions (NO, NO₂, N₂O, CO, UHC, NH₃). The results showed that hydrogen addition to natural gas slightly increased the burner surface temperature but did not have significant impact on other burner performance parameters. Up to 20% (by volume) natural gas was replaced by hydrogen, and no abnormal effect was observed. Furthermore, tests carried out in a prototype water heater showed similar performance. This study gives a positive sign relative to replacing pipeline natural gas with renewable hydrogen at a low percentage without modifying the burner geometry.     

Experimental assessment of the combustion performance of an oven burner operated on pipeline natural gas mixed with hydrogen

With the increasing need to reduce greenhouse gas emission and adopt sustainability in combustion systems, injection of renewable gases into the pipeline natural gas is of great interest. Due to high specific energy density and various potential sources, hydrogen is a competitive energy carrier and a promising gaseous fuel to replace natural gas in the future. To test the end use impact of hydrogen injection into the natural gas pipeline infrastructure, the present study has been carried out to evaluate the fuel interchangeability between hydrogen and natural gas in a residential commercial oven burner. Various combustion performance characteristics were evaluated, including flashback limits, ignition performance, flame characteristics, combustion noise, burner temperature and emissions (NO, NO₂, N₂O, CO, UHC, NH₃). Primary air entrainment process was also investigated. Several correlations for predicting air entrainment were compared and evaluated for accuracy based on the measured fuel/air concentration results in the burner. The results indicate that 25% (by volume) hydrogen can be added to natural gas without significant impacts. Above this amount, flashback in the burner tube is the limiting factor. Hydrogen addition has minimal impact on NO_X emission while expectedly decreasing CO emissions. As the amount of hydrogen increases in the fuel, the ability of the fuel to entrain primary air decreases.     

Experimental investigation on biogas enrichment with hydrogen for improving the combustion in diesel engine operating under dual fuel mode

Biogas valorization as fuel for internal combustion engines is one of the alternative fuels, which could be an interesting way to cope the fossil fuel depletion and the current environmental degradation. In this circumstance, an experimental investigation is achieved on a single cylinder DI diesel engine running under dual fuel mode with a focus on the improvement of biogas/diesel fuel combustion by hydrogen enrichment. In the present investigation, the mixture of biogas, containing 70% CH₄ and 30% CO₂, is blended with the desired amount of H₂ (up to 10, 15 and 20% by volume) by using MTI 200 analytical instrument gas chromatograph, which flow thereafter towards the engine intake manifold and mix with the intake air. Depending on engine load conditions, the volumetric composition of the inducted gaseous fraction is 20–50% biogas, 2–10% H₂ and 45–78% air. Near the end of the compression stroke, a small amount of diesel pilot fuel is injected to initiate the combustion of the gas–air mixture. Firstly, the engine was tested on conventional diesel mode (baseline case) and then under dual fuel mode using the biogas. Consequently, hydrogen has partially enriched the biogas. Combustion characteristics, performance parameters and pollutant emissions were investigated in-depth and compared. The results have shown that biogas enriched with 20% H₂ leads to 20% decrease of methane content in the overall exhaust emissions, associated with an improvement in engine performance. The emission levels of unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) and carbon monoxide (CO) are decreased up to 25% and 30% respectively. When the equivalence ratio is increased, a supplement decrease in UHC and CO emissions is achieved up to 28% and 30% respectively when loading the engine at 60%.     

Influence of hydrogen addition to pipeline natural gas on the combustion performance of a cooktop burner

Displacing pipeline natural gas with renewable hydrogen is a promising way to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, which is a major greenhouse gas. However, due to significantly differing characteristics of hydrogen and natural gas, such as flame speed, adiabatic flame temperature and stability limits, the combustion performance of hydrogen/natural gas mixture differs from pure natural gas. From the perspective of residential end users, a key question is: how much hydrogen can be injected into the pipeline natural gas without influencing the performance of the residential burners? A representative cooktop burner is selected to study the influence of hydrogen addition on the combustion and cooking performance. Flashback limits, ignition time, flame characteristics, cooking performance, combustion noise, burner temperature, and various emissions (NO, NO₂, N₂O, CO, unburned hydrocarbon (UHC), NH₃) are evaluated for different levels of hydrogen addition. According to the experimental results, the combustion performance of the cooktop burner is not significantly affected with up to about 15% hydrogen addition by volume, which shows the feasibility of utilizing hydrogen on existing cooking appliances without any modification. The experiment methodologies and results in this study will serve as a reference for future test and emission regulation standards on domestic burners.     

A compilation of operability and emissions performance of residential water heaters operated on blends of natural gas and hydrogen including consideration for reporting bases

The impact of hydrogen added to natural gas on the performance of commercial domestic water heating devices has been discussed in several recent papers in the literature. Much of the work focuses on performance at specific hydrogen levels (by volume) up to 20–30% as a near term blend target. In the current work, new data on several commercial devices have been obtained to help quantify upper limits based on flashback limits. In addition, results from 39 individual devices are compiled to help generalize observations regarding performance. The emphasis of this work is on emissions performance and especially NOx emissions. It is important to consider the reporting bases of the emissions numbers to avoid any unitended bias. For water heaters, the trends associated with both mass per fuel energy input and concentration-based representation are similar For carbon free fuels, bases such as 12% CO2 should be avoided. In general, the compiled data shows that NOx, NO, UHC, and CO levels decrease with increasing hydrogen percentage. The % decrease in NOx and NO is greater for low NOx devices (meaning certified to NOx <10 ng/J using premixing with excess air) compared to conventional devices (“pancake burners”, partial premixing). Further, low NOx devices appear to be able to accept greater amounts of hydrogen, above 70% hydrogen in some cases, without modification, while conventional water heaters appear limited to 40–50% hydrogen. Reporting emissions on a mass basis per unit fuel energy input is preferred to the typical dry concentration basis as the greater amount of water produced by hydrogen results in a perceived increase in NOx when hydrogen is used. While this effort summarizes emissions performance with added hydrogen, additional work is needed on transient operation, higher levels of hydrogen, system durability/reliability, and heating efficiency.     

Analysis of the impact of gasoline,biogas and biogas + hydrogen fuels on emissions and vehicle performance in the WLTC and NEDC

The use of gasoline fuel in passenger cars has become popular once again due to the pollutants (oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter) diesel engines emit. In addition, research and development have been going on regarding the use of alternative and environmental fuels, such as biogas and hydrogen fuel, in passenger cars. In this study, a numeric engine model that was empirically validated with the engine test was used. Then, the effects of biogas and biogas + hydrogen fuels on fuel consumption and emissions in the Worldwide Harmonized Light Duty Test Cycle and New European Driving Cycle were analysed. Based on the findings, it was concluded that positive results in terms of emissions and fuel consumption could be obtained with a low ratio of hydrogen (5% as molar) added to biogas fuel. With the addition of hydrogen, 16.3% increase in fuel consumption with the use of biogas alone decreased to 12.1% and the increase in CO emissions decreased from 21.6% to 11.7% during NEDC cycle.     

Effect of reformed biogas as a low reactivity fuel on performance and emissions of a RCCI engine with reformed biogas/diesel dual-fuel combustion

Biogas can be used as a less expensive continuance renewable fuel in internal combustion engines. However, variety in raw materials and process of biogas production results in different components and percentages of various elements, including methane. These differences make it difficult to control the combustion, effectively, in internal combustion engines. In this research, under cleaning and reforming process, biogas components were fixed. Then the effect of reformed biogas (R.BG) was investigated, numerically, on the combustion behavior, performance and emissions characteristics of a RCCI engine. A 3D-computational modeling has been performed to validate a single-cylinder compression ignition engine in conventional diesel and dual-fuel operations at 9 bar IMEP, 1300 rpm. Then, the combustion model of the RCCI engine was simulated by replacing diesel fuel with 20%, 40% and 60% of R.BG as a low reactivity fuel while remaining constant input total fuel energy per cycle. The results demonstrated that when the R.BG substitution ratio increases with a constant equivalence ratio of 0.43, the mean combustion temperature decreases to 1354 K, 1312 K, 1292 K which are about 3.5%, 6.6%, 7.9% lower than the conventional diesel combustion, respectively. The maximum in-cylinder pressure increases up to 22.63%. Instead, it results in 2.3%, 7.9%, and 14.5% engine power output losses, respectively. Also, the NOx emission, against CO, is decreased by 50%. Soot and UHC emissions were found to be slightly decreased while was used R.BG more than 40%.     

Experimental study on flame stability of biogas / hydrogen combustion

The flame stability of biogas blended with hydrogen combustion was experimentally studied in the constant volume combustion bomb. The variations of characteristic parameters of flame instability and effect of pressure and fuel component proportion on flame shape were analyzed. The experimental results show that the flame instability increases with the decrease of equivalence ratio, and the global flame stability decreases with increase of CO₂ fractions. With increase of initial pressure of biogas and hydrogen mixture, Markstein length decreases, hydrodynamic instability decreases, but the thermal mass diffusion instability has no effect. The effect of increase of the hydrogen ratio on flame stability is more obvious, with the increase of initial pressure and hydrogen ratio together, both hydrodynamic instability and thermal mass diffusion instability increase. This research can provide experimental basis for the design and development of biogas blended with hydrogen engines.     

Analysis of the effect of H2O content on combustion behaviours of a biogas fuel

The present work deals with the biogas in a combustor with regard to its combustion features under differing conditions of H₂0 content and H₂S. The content of water (H₂O) vapour has been changed from 0% to 10% and a CFD code has been employed while implementing numerical investigations. In modelling, a combustion model (the PDF/Mixture Fraction) along with a turbulence model (the k-Ɛ standard turbulence model) has been utilised. This study also deals with the combustion performances of the biogas by the addition of a different quantity of H₂O into the biogas. The Emissions and the flame temperature of the biogas through the combustor apparently seem to be strikingly affected by the changes in H₂O contents. It is interesting to note that the flame temperature zones change their positions and advance to the burner's downstream. The rise in flame temperatures of the biogas can be attributed to the change in H₂O content caused by a better fuel-air mixture. It is also observed that adding H₂O into the biogas lowers the axial temperature levels.     

Experimental and computational study on the enhancement of engine characteristics by hydrogen enrichment in a biogas fuelled spark ignition engine

Limitations on the upgradation of biogas to biomethane in terms of cost effectiveness and technology maturity levels for stationary power generation purpose in rural applications have redirected the research focus towards possibilities for enhancement of biogas fuel quality by blending with superior quality fuels. In this work, the effect of hydrogen enrichment on performance, combustion and emission characteristics of a single-cylinder, four-stroke, water-cooled, biogas fuelled spark-ignition engine operated at the compression ratio of 10:1 and 1500 rpm has been evaluated using experimental and computational (CFD) studies. The percentage share of hydrogen in the inducted biogas fuel mixture was increased from 0 to 30%, and engine characteristics with pure methane fuel was considered as a baseline for comparative analysis. The CFD model is developed in Converge CFD software for a better understanding on combustion phenomenon and is validated with experimental data. In addition, the percentage share of hydrogen enrichment which would serve as a compromise between biogas upgradation cost and engine characteristics is also identified. The results of study indicated an enhancement in combustion characteristics (peak in-cylinder pressure increased; COV_IMEP reduced from 9.87% to 1.66%; flame initiation and combustion durations reduced) and emission characteristics (hydrocarbon emissions reduced, and NOx emissions increased but still lower than pure methane) with increase in hydrogen share from 0 to 30% in biogas fuelled SI engine. Flame propagation speed increased and combustion duration reduced with hydrogen supplementation and the same was evident from the results of the CFD model. Performance of the engine increased with increase in hydrogen share up to 20% and further increment in hydrogen share degraded the performance, owing to heat losses and the enhancement in combustion characteristics were relatively small. Overall, it was found that 20% blending of hydrogen in the inducted biogas fuel mixture will be effective in enhancing the engine characteristics of biogas fuelled engines for stationary power generation applications and it holds a good compromise between biogas upgradation cost and engine performance.     

Technical,economic, and environmental analyses of the modernization of a chamber furnace operating on natural gas or hydrogen

The paper presents a technical, economic and environmental analyses of a chamber furnace used to heat the charge before forging. The energy efficiency of the furnace before the modernization was 18%, after the modernization it was 31% (partial modernization due to large financial outlays). Other variants were also analysed: complete modernization, the variant of furnace modernization with 30% hydrogen content in the gas and the variant with 100% hydrogen as fuel. The analyses showed that with the current gas price (0.025 EUR/kWh) and the price of emission allowances (nearly 60 EUR/MgCO₂) and 100 cycles/year, the difference in Net Present Value (NPV) before base variant and partial modernization is around 900,000 EUR and before base variant and full modernization is 1,200,000 EUR. The introduction of the gas and 30% of hydrogen co-combustion option versus the base scenario option for 150 cycles per year results in a NPV difference of at least 2 million EUR. The option of 100% hydrogen as a fuel is the most advantageous from the point of view of reducing CO₂ emissions - it is largely influenced by the rising prices of CO₂ emission allowances.     

Effect of hydrogen addition on the performance of a biogas fuelled spark ignition engine

Hydrogen was added in small amounts (5%, 10% and 15% on the energy basis) to biogas and tested in a spark ignition engine at constant speed at different equivalence ratios to study the effects on performance, emissions and combustion. Hydrogen significantly enhances the combustion rate and extends the lean limit of combustion of biogas. There is an improvement in brake thermal efficiency and brake power. However, beyond 15% hydrogen the need to retard the ignition timing to control knock does not lead to improvements at high equivalence ratios. Significant reductions in hydrocarbon levels were seen. There was no increase in nitric oxide emissions due to the use of retarded ignition timing and the presence of carbon dioxide. Peak pressures and heat release rates are lower with hydrogen addition as the ignition timing is to be retarded to avoid knock. There is a reduction in cycle-by-cycle variations in combustion with lean mixtures. On the whole 10% hydrogen addition was found to be the most suitable.     

Study on combustion behaviors and cycle-by-cycle variations in a turbocharged lean burn natural gas S.I. engine with hydrogen enrichment

Lean burn is widely accepted as an effective approach to simultaneously improve spark-ignition engine's thermal efficiency and decrease exhaust emissions. But although lean burn has a lot of advantages it is also associated with several difficulties including slower flame propagation speed and increased cycle-by-cycle variations. Hydrogen addition is thought to be an ideal approach to tackle these problems. This paper presents an experimental work aimed at investigating the effects of hydrogen addition on the combustion behaviors and cycle-by-cycle variations in a turbocharged lean burn natural gas SI engine. The experiments were conducted over a wide range of hydrogen enhancement levels, equivalence ratios, spark timings, manifold absolute pressures and engine speeds.     

Effects of hydrogen addition and cylinder cutoff on combustion and emissions performance of a spark-ignited gasoline engine under a low operating condition

Because of the low combustion temperature and high throttling loss, SI (spark-ignited) engines always encounter dropped performance at low load conditions. This paper experimentally investigated the co-effect of cylinder cutoff and hydrogen addition on improving the performance of a gasoline-fueled SI engine. The experiment was conducted on a modified four-cylinder SI engine equipped with an electronically controlled hydrogen injection system and a hybrid electronic control unit. The engine was run at 1400 rpm, 34.5 Nm and two cylinder cutoff modes in which one cylinder and two cylinders were closed, respectively. For each cylinder closing strategy, the hydrogen energy fraction in the total fuel (βH₂)$\left({\beta }_{{\text{H}}_2}\right)$ was increased from 0% to approximately 20%. The test results demonstrated that engine indicated thermal efficiency was effectively improved after cylinder cutoff and hydrogen addition, which rose from 34.6% of the original engine to 40.34% of the engine operating at two-cylinder cutoff mode and βH₂=20.41%${\beta }_{{\text{H}}_2}=20.41\%$. Flame development and propagation periods were shortened with the increase of the number of closed cylinders and hydrogen blending ratio. The total cooling loss for all working cylinders, and tailpipe HC (hydrocarbons), CO (carbon monoxide) and CO₂ (carbon dioxide) emissions were reduced whereas tailpipe NO_x (nitrogen oxide) emissions were increased after hydrogen addition and cylinder closing.     

Engine characteristics of emissions and performance using mixtures of natural gas and hydrogen

An evaluation was performed on the efficiency and emissions from an engine fuelled with compressed natural gas (CNG) and a mixture of natural gas and hydrogen, respectively. The mixtures of CNG and hydrogen were named HCNG.     

Strategies to improve the performance of a spark ignition engine using fuel blends of biogas with natural gas,propane and hydrogen

This work presents the strategies applied to improve the performance of a spark ignition (SI) biogas engine. A diesel engine with a high compression ratio (CR) was converted to SI to be fueled with gaseous fuels. Biogas was used as the main fuel to increase knocking resistance of the blends. Biogas was blended with natural gas, propane, and hydrogen to improve fuel combustion properties. The spark timing (ST) was adjusted for optimum generating efficiencies close to the knocking threshold. The engine was operated on each blend at the maximum output power under stable combustion conditions. The maximum output power was measured at partial throttle limited by engine knocking threshold. The use of biogas in the engine resulted in a power derating of 6.25% compared with the original diesel engine (8 kW @ 1800 rpm). 50% biogas + 50% natural gas was the blend with the highest output power (8.66 kW @1800 rpm) and the highest generating efficiency (29.8%); this blend indeed got better results than the blends enriched with propane and hydrogen. Tests conditions were selected to achieve an average knocking peak pressure between 0.3 and 0.5 bar and COV of IMEP lower than 4% using 200 consecutive cycles as reference. With the blends of biogas, propane, and hydrogen, the output power obtained was just over 8 kW whereas the blends of biogas, natural gas, and hydrogen the output power were close to 8.6 kW. Moreover, a new approach to evaluate the maximum output power in gas engines is proposed, which does not depend on the engine % throttle but on the limit defined by the knocking threshold and cyclic variations.     

Experimental investigation on performance of hydrogen additions in natural gas combustion combined with CO2

Natural gas with H₂ is widely used for lean-burn combustion, which leads to NO_x emission as the main problem for it. For decreasing NO_x emission and increasing thermal efficiency, the investigation on seeking the influence of H₂ fractions on the mixture of CH₄ and CO₂ was conducted. Firstly, the ignition timing was decided through thermal efficiency and brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) for CH₄ only. Then, combustion characteristics of CH₄, CH₄+CO₂ and CH₄+CO₂+H₂ were compared with volume percentage of H₂ changing from 5% to 30%. Finally, the H₂ injection strategy was checked between closed and open valve injections. Among these discussions, thermal efficiency, power output, BMEP and fuel consumption were evaluated. Results show that CO₂ addition decreases power output and BMEP, leading to much more fuel consumption and lower thermal efficiency. When H₂ is added, at the rich mixture conditions (λ＜1.0), power output and thermal efficiency decrease sharply as the mixture is enriched. However, at the lean-burn conditions (λ＞1.0), the decrease in flow rate of lower heating value (LHV) and increase in power output finally result in the higher efficiency with H₂ addition. Moreover, when λ＞1.0, both low fuel consumption and high efficiency can be obtained with H₂ addition to achieve the high BMEP. Furthermore, the open valve injection could obtain higher thermal efficiency, power output and BMEP with lower fuel consumption, suggesting that the H₂ injection strategy should be well controlled with the ignition timing.     

Effect of equivalence ratio on knocking tendency in spark ignition engines fueled with fuel blends of biogas,natural gas,propane and hydrogen

This research evaluates the effect of the equivalence ratio on knocking tendency in two Spark Ignition (SI) engines fueled with gaseous fuels. A Lister Petter TR2 Diesel engine (TR2) converted to SI was used to evaluate the equivalence ratio effect when the engine was fueled with fuel blends of biogas, natural gas, propane, and hydrogen. A Cooperative Fuel Research (CFR) engine was used to study the effect of equivalence ratio on the Critical Compression Ratio (CCR) which is a metric to evaluate the knocking tendency of gaseous fuels. In both engines, the tests were conducted using the knocking threshold as the engine limit operation to quantify the effect of the equivalence ratio on knocking tendency. Experimental results in the CFR engine revealed that a lean mixture reduces the knocking tendency allowing to operate the CFR engine at higher CCR. In contrast, the effect of the equivalence ratio on the knocking tendency in the TR2 engine was different since leaner mixtures increased the engine knocking tendency. This tendency was caused by the increase in the % throttle which increased the mixture pressure at the end of the compression stroke. The high knocking tendency to lean mixtures forces to reduce the output power to find the knocking threshold for all fuel blends.     

The impact of hydrogen addition to natural gas on flame stability

Injecting hydrogen into existing natural gas networks is a promising step to mitigate global warming. However there is little evidence showing that how much degree of hydrogen admixture can be accepted. Experiments on populations of gas appliances are not available at present, thus a unified estimation method is required. First, a single-port burner was experimentally evaluated using methane-hydrogen mixtures (hydrogen percentage: 0–50%vol, unburned mixture temperature:373–573K, equivalence ratio:0.8–2). Mathematical formulae of the critical boundary velocity gradient, which quantitatively depict the relationships between flashback, lifting and hydrogen percentage, temperature were provided. A multi-ports burner was subsequently assessed, and the results of the two burners showed good agreement. An analysis method for changes in the flame stability region and gas source replacement decision was proposed based on curves of the flashback and lifting limits. This work provides an important basis for introducing hydrogen into gas networks and the design and adjustment of gas appliances.